Veg oil viscosity experiment

[stephen]

I have spoken a few times about adding acetone to reduce the surface tension but as of yet not found much evidence of this working.  SO I started a little experiment.

Apparatus:
1  x washing up bottle with the bottom chopped off
1 x measuring cylinder
1 x Thermometer
1 x Accurate weighing scales to help check repeatability of liquid measurement.
1 x Thermometer.
1 x Kitchen with wife absent at time of experiment (although she said it would have been nice to have helped)





OK I added 250ml of derv to the washing up bottle and allowed it to drizzle out and timed it.  I then repeated it with all of the below items. Repeated 3 times each and averaged the results.

Derv @ 15c   30.63sec
vegoil @14.5c   1.05
veg oil @ 20c   49
veg oil @ 70c   33.45
new corn oil   51.31
   
veg oil 20% pet + 0.2 acetone   51.75
veg oil with 20%petrol   51.75
veg oil with 0.2% acetone   59.35
60% derv 40% veg    34.4  (similar time to veg at 70C)
   
   
veg oil with 20%petrol @ 70c   34.81
   

As you can see veg with acetone does not make much difference under normal conditions, it may have an effect under pressure.  Altering the temp of the oil is the best and main factor in reducing viscosity (but I am sure we all knew that)

Adding a few blobs of washing up oil made no difference to the viscosity either.

Girls and boys, don’t heat oil especially with petrol in it unless supervised by the fire brigade and St johns ambulance. 

No animal or human was hurt during these experiments.



Hope this helps someone

Stephen

[Paulh_Boats]

I think I can spot an exposed conductor on live or neutral from the Lister. 

[stephen]

no you cant! its just the colour of the meter tail. The PVC goes right upto the brass block inside the black box.  Its the same as the tails done by the electricity company apart from they put a red cable tie around the live as well.
Its going to be built into a locked box any how. 

stephen

[Paulh_Boats]

no you cant! its just the colour of the meter tail. The PVC goes right upto the brass block inside the black box.  Its the same as the tails done by the electricity company apart from they put a red cable tie around the live as well.
Its going to be built into a locked box any how. 

stephen

Apologies then..it must be a trick of the lighting ...or my dodgy eyesight 

It looked like the grey insulation stopped short and became thinner. The only reason I mentioned it is that the Sparky Nazis might be watching.    Great idea about a locked box.

[stephen]

No problems,
Its double insulated 25mm2 cable.  Its the brown (blue behind it) colours thats showing, unless this is wrong? Its easy enough to shorten if need be.  It will have to be certified anyhow when its all done so any minor alterations can be made then.  You did not spot not earthing the earth tag though, got to do that yet.

I am sure it will all be OK though as its done the same as my 100A isolator switch the leccy people put in for me only mine is much neater. It makes a bit of a mockery of having double insulated cables though if you ask me!

[Ivan]

Whenever I wire any mains, I tend to put a few turns of appropriate colour insulation tape around it, rather than strip the insulation back (actually, I end up having to do that to homogenise homologate the wiring colour schemes).

Back to the subject: Good experiment. Shows that adding acetone makes virtually no difference to viscosity. Is that the claimed reason for adding it? Did it mix well? I thought the idea was along the lines of - acetone burns hotter, and therefore makes diesel burn more efficiently...although I doubt it would have any real effect at this concentration, and of course the fuel companies/car manufacturers are already wringing out what they can.

I wonder whether there could be any chemical reaction whereby veg oil is made less viscous due to changes in the long hydrocarbon structure?

[paul149]

Sorry to be picky, but could  the SWA gland have been terminated into the bottom of a 100mm X 100mm Galv box-Screwfix 19806 (fixed tight underneath the distribution board with the steel wires bonded via a banjo washer inside the box and linked to the dist board earth terminal via a CPC along with the Yellow conductor (EARTH?)  & the phase conductors left nice and long so as to go straight through the top of the Galv box and in through the bottom of the dist board and onto the switch disconnector? (suitably coloured of course with insulation tape) Just being picky...

[Ivan]

I've put approx 0.2% (estimated 100ml into estimated 45litres diesel plus 3litres of veg oil - the veg oil was used to get the acetone into the tank). Being careful in case acetone dissolves the fuel hose, plastic fuel cap etc.

Acetone doesn't dissolve readily in the veg oil, but it definitely was dissolving to a certain extent. It tends to float on the top.

I'll let you know tomorrow evening whether there is any noticeable improvement or not.

[stephen]

I had to give it a good shake. The acetone forms ripples through the veg oil. It took some stiring for it to desolve.

The cable is much bigger than 25mm2 so it had to be reduced down so it would enter the consumer unit.  The cable is multi core so an earth core is being used.  the outer earth is only used in case its dug up which I doubt as you will never go through it with a spade, its only in the garden and it has a sand layer and 'caution HV cable' above it.
How come frotter doesnt get comments like this !!! lol.   Its safe guys and girls. onest

[mespilus]

Not that I would ever consider putting Duty unpaid chemicals in my fuel tank, but why are trying such low levels of acetone?

Acetone is polar, veg oil is not. 0.2% Acetone is too low to disrupt the
transient quaternary structure of veg oil.

What I have seen done to demonstrate the viscosity reducing properties of acetone:

Take a supermarket 3L plastic bottle of veg oil.
Fill all the ullage/space left in the bottle with acetone.
(Probably 1-3%, hard to estimate conical volumes).

Replace lid invert 3 or 4 times.
Wait 5 minutes
Invert a couple more times.
Result: very much lower viscosity.

For any members of HMRC lurking: As far as I am aware this was just a demonstration of physical properties of mixtures of
dissimilar chemicals, and there was no intention, implied or other that this mixture was to be used as a road fuel.
.

[Ivan]

So far, 140 miles, and mpg reading is pretty similar to normal. No significant improvement so far. Will have the final verdict when I get home this evening!

Stephen's experiments haven't shown any great viscosity reduction. Mespilus, do you think he should be adding 2% rather than 0.2%?

[stephen]

Everything I have read states 0.2% therefore beleved it to be a chemical change rather than just a thinning process.  At £3 per ltr is cheaper to put petrol in and as you have said duty is paid therefore cannot fall foul to duty paid etc. 
I think it may be another snake oil product ?

Do a search people state 0.2%


Stephen

[David]

Its double insulated 25mm2 cable.

Actually it is insulated and sheathed cable, though double insulated is a common term for it even amongst those who should know better. The grey bit is there to provide mechanical protection, the brown/blue bits are the insulation.

It will have to be certified anyhow when its all done so any minor alterations can be made then.  You did not spot not earthing the earth tag though, got to do that yet.

To be blunt, if shown that I would fail the installation. The SWA cable is not terminated in an appropriate box and thus there is not mechanical protection for the cable cores. Cable with red yellow and blue cores should not have been used in a new installation, though as an environmentalist I would have overlooked that had the cores been sleeved with the appropriate brown, blue and green/yellow colours. There is also the question of earthing, which opens up a whole can of worms to do with local earth rods. Depending on what earthing system is in use the earth tag may or may not need to be connected.

However, if shown that as work in progress I would offer the following friendly advice of things to do before getting it inspected. I think it can be easily sorted out. I would ditch the Henley block and terminate the SWA in a suitable box, like <http://www.screwfix.co.uk/prods/19806/Electrical/Cable-Accessories/Junction-Boxes/Adaptable-Box-4-x-4-x-2>. I would then run the insulated and sheathed cables into that, obviously with a suitable grommet in the hole and join the cores with a terminal block inside the box. There would need to be appropriate strain relief. AKA a clip or two. During this heat shrink sleeving could easily be placed over the appropriate cores and given the hair drier treatment.

Alternatively I would consider terminating the SWA cable at the consumer unit, assuming it is suitable, running the cores to the appropriate terminals from there. You did say that the cable was much bigger then 25 sq mm, but is that the cores or the cable itself?   Consumer units will generally take 50 sq mm incommers on the main switch/RCD and that is the case for MK branded units, according to the brochure which can be downloaded from Screwfix or other suppliers.

[County 4x4]

The use of acetone is an interesting subject.

I'm not sure about the link between viscosity and surface tension though. All the stuff I've read has been talking about acetone lowering the surface tension of the fuel and presumably improving the spray pattern through the injectors(?)- it's used by a lot of people running petrol and diesel powered vehicles. There has not been any mention of any change in viscosity. This got me thinking really, as for instance, water has a high surface tension, but very low viscosity. I haven't read any results of using it in vegetable oil.

I don't think it is intended to thin anything - not in the quantities that are recommended anyway - the generally accepted amount being 1.5ml per litre (for diesel fuel). In higher concentrations, it actually reduces fuel economy to a point below where you started.

There are quite a few people on the Transit forum using the stuff, and there have been a number of threads on the subject. It doesn't seem to be a 100% guaranteed mpg improver though - works for some and not for others. My father in law tried it in his Pajero and got exactly the same mpg the first tankful, but quite a marked improvement thereafter which has continued. This is doing the same trip at the same time each day so should give reasonably consistent results. Several on the Transit site are reporting an extra 30 - 40 miles per tank.

Cheapest supply is from glass fibre specialists - they use it for cleaning tools etc - about £7 for 5 litres IIRC.

Cheers,

Andy

[mespilus]

Everything I have read states 0.2% therefore beleved it to be a chemical change rather than just a thinning process.  At £3 per ltr is cheaper to put petrol in and as you have said duty is paid therefore cannot fall foul to duty paid etc. 
I think it may be another snake oil product ?

Do a search people state 0.2%


Stephen

There is no chemical reaction between vanishingly small quantities of acetone and veg oil.

As you noticed your self, the acetone has no interest in mixing with the veg oil, the consequence of polar and essentially non-polar liquids
separating.

Adding energy, (shaking/inverting), can cause a dispersing effect.

Possibly the acetone has a beneficial effect upon deposits on the injector, possibly.

One could envisage the solvency of acetone removing the varnished residue of uncompletely burnt
veg oil from near the orifice of the injectors.

I once had a diesel car, running on fossil diesel, that refused to start, several hundred miles from home. It was a company car
so I had no reluctance in using an aerosol (it was a long time ago) of "Instant Start" that just had to be sprayed into the air inlet.

That smelt pretty much just like acetone.

One spray and away we went.

That suggests to me that acetone ignites at lower compressions and temperatures than diesel, and especially wvo or wvo derived biodiesel,
and could, potentially help the combustion of wvo/wvo derived biodiesel.

The car subsequently needed new glow plugs.

Anyone use those "Diesel Injector Cleaners" at £ too much per little bottle?

I guess they are acetone and not too much else.